IC Inbox

[lastdecember]

This is the after hours contact for Nicholas Wolfwood, Logistics. If this is an emergency, stop wasting everyone's time and page me.

Comments

[lastdecember]

[ ...He really should have just ignored this message too, shouldn't he? Just pretended he didn't see it and gone back work.

But he's stuck in quarantine and he's bored out of his mind, and apparently boredom makes him stupid. ]

Why are you telling me this? What does your dream have to do with me? You dreamed a guy with my name who wasn't me, so what? Did he hurt you and you want me to apologize?

[plantussy]

What? No??

it isn't just dreams, Wolfwood! I got glowy lines in my eyes from my 'dream'! Now I'm seeing you and it isn't you, of course I had to tell you in case something happens!

[lastdecember]

What do you mean in case something happens? Did you see that something bad was going to happen to you?

[plantussy]

no, nothing bad was going to happen to me.

[ Angry as the 'Wolfwood' was, Vash wasn't scared of him. More like... proud? ]

I just

My eyes changed after that dream, Wolfwood
what if seeing someone else with your name changes something too?

[ What if it changes you, Vash wants to say, but loses the words. They're not friends. Just coworkers. Wolfwood has made that clear. ]

[lastdecember]

[ Oh. Oh, the bad thing that Saverem saw happened to him, not to Vash. Oh he doesn't like that idea at all.

Vash saw him changed. Vash saw him becoming something awful. It's not possible -- it shouldn't be possible -- but he's hit with the sudden fear that Vash knows what he's been dreaming about. About swearing himself to the devil, about fighting impossible demons. About shooting a friend in the back.

He needs to get off this goddamn ship and away from people altogether, and he needs to do it soon. ]

Maybe your dream was right. If I spend any more time in quarantine I'm going to be pale and skinny as anything, ha ha ha.

[plantussy]

[ Vash has no idea what to make of that text, because it sounds so much like himself that it's uncanny. Make a joke out of it. Divert. Hide.

Not-friends withstanding, he needs to look this man in the eyes. ]

Can I see you? Please.

[lastdecember]

No.

[ Wait, no, he doesn't mean it like that. ]

I'm in quarantine. 17h41m left to go.

[plantussy]

[ Those few seconds before Wolfwood clarifies are surprisingly saddening and activates the Vash 'annoy you until you either hit me or let me be your friend' state, but the explanation takes the air out of him again.

Damn, why does he care so much about being Wolfwood's friend? Even the squabbling feels right. Like things just slot into place where they should be. ]

Oh. Well
please meet me when you can, then?
I just want to
I'm just worried.

[lastdecember]

[ When he's out of quarantine he'll find another reason, and then another, to keep avoiding Crybaby here. Sorry pal, but everyone on the ship will be safer if Wolfwood's just left alone to do his work in peace. ]

Look Crybaby, it wasn't real. That wasn't me. I don't need a babysitter.

[plantussy]

I know you don't. I think you need a friend, though.

[ He will stalk your wily ass! ]

[lastdecember]

I dreamed I killed my friend. You probably should reconsider that offer, because that sounds like a dangerous job to have.

[plantussy]

[ That's... heavy. ]

That doesn't mean you can't make another choice, Wolfwood. I'm not afraid.

[lastdecember]

[ What an absolute idiot. ]

You're not going to let me say no, are you?

[plantussy]

[ Absolutely incorrigible idiot.

...both of them. ]

Nope!

[lastdecember]

[ Goddammit!

...He has a friend. Saverem is his friend. Does that mean he's Saveren's friend too?

How the fuck do you be a friend?! ]

You're a real asshole, you know that?

[ And then, sent immediately after: ]

Tell me what you dreamed. All of it, every detail.

[plantussy]

[ If Vash snickers at that comment in Engineering, that's just for him and Sheryl to know. ]

I'm okay with that.

[ There's a pause. ]

Okay. Just let me think.

I was on some kind of ship, but it was sailing on sand rather than water. It looked old and had a lot of mishmashed pieces. Kind of like the fringe hovercrafts, only the size of a building. Things must have broken around us, maybe from a fight, and I got the feeling that the ship had lost control.

[lastdecember]

Being stuck on a crashing ship sure sounds like a lousy premonition. I vote that the only part of all that to turn out real is me being pale and skinny.

[plantussy]

not that skinny, just
younger, I guess?

[ Alley cat, Vash thinks to himself. ]

anyway
we're arguing
this Wolfwood says we have no time, that he's going to make the ship self-destruct
there are so many people on it, though
thousands
so I ask what about them?

[ Sigh. ]

And you say we don't have time for that

[lastdecember]

[ DO NOT ever call him that! He will piss on everything you love and give you fleas, motherfucker. ]

Hey, I'm a lot of things but suicidal isn't one of them. This dream guy doesn't sound like me at all.

[plantussy]

[ Pspspsps ]

it's because we're heading for a city
and his orphanage is there
the thing he wants to protect more than anything

and I tell him I will find way to save both
and he says that if I can't kill anyone I can't save anyone

[lastdecember]

[ You dreamed a version of me who owned an orphanage? he wants to ask, but that last line stops him cold.

So maybe Dream Guy sounds a little like him after all. ]

Then what happened?

[plantussy]

[ It takes quite a while for Vash to write the rest, trying to go through everything as thoroughly as possible. ]

We argue more I tell you there is a way
I don't know what that way is, but I seem confident in the dream
maybe desperate
but dream Wolfwood shoves me away and says that we'll do it my way
just once
because he owes me

but if the orphanage is destroyed
he'll hurt me so bad that i wish I was dead before he kills me
and I can see the pain in his eyes
the fear, and how he uses the anger as a shield

I say 'Wolfwood' and he tells me to shut up
that he's the punisher
Nicholas the punisher

I don't know if that's a title or what he does, but it ends there
but the whole time, that Wolfwood's suit is full of bullet holes and blood
like he's taken a dead man's jacket
but somehow I know it's his

[lastdecember]

[ The more Saverem talks, the more Wolfwood's sure this was just a dream. Maybe they'll crash land in a desert ocean and prove him wrong, but this dream Wolfwood wanted to protect some innocents. He was willing to kill for that, willing to die for that, and from what he's hearing, the Wolfwood in Saverem's dream might have already been dead. Spooky shit.

Maybe he dreamed about strange eyes and then woke up with strange eyes, but this dream? This is just Saverem's unconscious mind going back over all the things that have happened in the past couple months. There's nothing prophetic here. ]

You should have been a writer. You tell a good story. This one sounds like it could be a ghost story don't you think? Maybe they stop the ship and then it turns out that this punisher guy died years ago and his ghost haunts the place keeping it safe.

[ There's nothing prophetic here, but there's something about that phrase, Nicholas the punisher, that he really doesn't like. It feels wrong to say, like it really is going to summon an old ghost. ]

[plantussy]

It was so real, though.
so real

[ Sigh. ]

but it does really sound like a ghost story now that you say it

I was just really worried

[lastdecember]

You're stuck on a ship in the middle of nowhere with a skeleton crew and some jerk who tried to kill the captain. It's not surprising that kind of stuff is messing with your dreams. It's getting to me too you know? I'm dreaming about bad stuff too, but it's just dreams. And I know before you say it, yeah, the thing with your eyes was weird. But that was something some overly emotional space whale did to you and I'm sorry about that, but that thing is gone now so nothing like that should happen again. You'll be okay.